This School Is Forcing Students to Pay Fines for Being Late to Class

Being late for school sometimes is an unfortunate part of life. As much as parents want to avoid it, it happens. But as kids get older and start driving and finding their own rides to and from school, those every-once-in-a-while tardies tend to become a little more frequent. In an effort to crack down on late students, one Utah high school has actually started charging kids a fee for being late.

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For students at Stansbury High School in Stansbury Park, Utah, who find themselves arriving chronically late to their classes, a new kind of punishment is on the books. Instead of a simple call home or an after-school detention, they will now have to pay a monetary fee for every late infraction.

While the first offense only warrants a warning, the second tardy will require the payment of a $3 fee. For tardies after that, fees will increase to $5. If students cannot pay these fees, they have the option of participating in lunch detention or showing perfect attendance for a specific amount of time.

According to the school, these fees aren't meant to penalize parents or make life harder for kids. Instead, they're supposed to force students to be responsible and tackle the ongoing issue of kids being late between classes.

"What we're really trying to target is those periods between classes where really it's a choice," assistant principal Cody Reutzel told Fox 13. "It's a personal decision of whether you're going to walk from class A to class B and be on time."

And it's working. Since the new rule was put into effect about a week ago, the school has yet to charge any fees -- though they have issued plenty of warning slips. Still, many parents of school attendees don't agree with the new policy.